Express royal correspondent Richard Palmer shared an insight into Prince Harry’s long-standing obsession with his public perception.

Prince Harry’s “biggest fault” was apparent long before he met his wife Meghan Markle, according to a royal expert. Express.co.uk’s royal correspondent Richard Palmer spoke on this week’s Royal Round Up about a tour he took with the Duke of Sussex to the US before 2016, where his obsession with media scrutiny became clear.

On that trip Harry was reportedly “pouring over” press coverage of the event, in particular the public’s comments about him.

Mr Palmer told Pandora Forsyth: “I think one of Harry’s biggest faults actually is that he does pay an overt amout of attention to what is written about him and his wife.

“That’s always been the case, I can remember being on a tour to the US with him, we went to Colorado and went to see the Warrior Games.

“It was a really interesting tour, but he did say at one point during that trip that he’d been looking at a story in Heat magazine, actually I think one of his biggest fans might have been writing for them.”

Prince Harry has always been too focussed on press coverage, according to a royal commentator (Image: Getty)

The Duke of Sussex has been worried about media attention since before he even met Meghan (Image: Getty)

He added: “We were all saying, ‘why are you worrying what’s being said in these gossip magazines’?

“Maybe we lacked a bit of self-awareness because we, I think, newspaper reporters and broadcasters, specialist royal correspondents felt that we were doing more checking and trying to make sure that what we wrote was true.

“Now I think he just lumps everybody in together in the media.

“He used to spend a lot of time pouring over the comments from the public in online stories.”

Harry and Meghan have faced a lot of public scrutiny throughout their relationship (Image: Getty)

Richard Palmer said that people in the spotlight need to have a “hard skin” (Image: Getty)

The royal expert highlighted the need for “people in public life” to have a “hard skin”.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were this week mocked in an episode of US cartoon comedy series South Park.

The episode features the characters the Prince and Princess of Canada, a young royal couple who move to a small town in search of privacy while at the same time drawing attention to themselves non-stop.

The outfit the princess wears, a white hat and pink off-the-shoulder dress, are remarkably similar to what Meghan wore for the Trooping the Colour in 2018.

Harry and Meghan at Trooping the Colour in 2018 (Image: Getty)

They then embark on a ‘We want privacy’ tour to France, Australia and India.

Prince Harry’s memoir Spare is also parodied in the show, except in cartoon form it is titled Waaagh.

On the show the prince character says to an interviewer: “We just want to be normal people – all this attention is so hard.”